Spanish C and French C Honors braved the cold for a friendly game of pétanque, the French version of bocci ball. In a previous lesson, French students learned the rules of the game and Spanish students did an activity comparing pétanque with the Colombian game of tejo. Despite the weather, the day was a success!

Today the Honors Spanish and French students joined up for our 2nd round of “Sprench” class. Today we all stayed in the same location to do a cultural trivia game. The classes divided into small groups with a mix of both languages. We went through 50 questions referencing cultures from both languages. It was a great activity for a rainy day and tiredness that comes the day after Halloween.

One of the middle school SPANISH teachers, Señora Jiménez, and I have enjoyed planning activities together and sharing ideas as often as possible over our 9 years of collaboration at Pace. This year provides ample opportunities for bilingual teamwork as our two 8th grade honors classes are during the same class periods. We decided that this year we wanted to show our students how closely related French and Spanish are, how they can use their languages for true communication in the “real world”, and that it is really useful to be able to communicate in more than one world language. That led us to the creation of “Sprench,” a combination of Spanish and French. This school year we plan on combining our classes at least once a month for a variety of activities, incorporating both languages and exploring the cultures of the people who speak them.

Today we sent the students on a bilingual scavenger hunt around the entire campus. We set up QR codes in 20 different locations. Each code (when scanned by a smart phone) contained a question pertaining to the area where it was located, plus a clue to lead a group to the next location. Clues would rotate, with one being Spanish, then the next in French, etc. Our two classes had 7-8 groups that started in different locations. They had to perform different tasks to be able to answer the questions, and even used their languages! They spoke to our strength and conditioning coordinator in the weight room (originally from France), inquired about the origin of two of our maintenance staff from Mexico, met an Upper School French teacher and got to say “Hola” to the 6th and 7th grade Spanish teachers, and answered questions about many other things in either French or Spanish.

They did a chevere/fanstastique job and had so much fun showing off their languages. I know my French kids can’t wait for our next date with the “Spanish-ies”!